Reinventing and Redefining Islam

There is a new breed of Islamic writers
gracing the Internet with their new brand of a tolerant and
companionate Islam. These new writers are mostly western educated,
live in western societies, work in western countries, and raise
their children in the West. They are sophisticated, articulate,
smart and knowledgeable. However, they are quite fiercely Islam
minded. They write extremely lengthy essays on Islam and spare no
pain to portray Islam as a religion of peace, tolerance, mercy,
compassion, justice, humane and what not? You just name the good
adjective and it is there in Islam. Reading such prolix essays could
be strenuous and tiring, to say the least. However, if you have the
patience to go through these enormous writings, you may be confused
to think that these writers sound almost like secularists and
freethinkers! In fact, if they did not include the lengthy quotes
from the holy books we might even think that they are not really
Islamists. Some of these Islamists even blame the Hadiths for such a
sordid state of affairs in Islam by saying that it is the creation
of human whereas, Qur'an is the creation of Supreme Lord. Thus,
according to these writers not all Hadiths are authentic. How
outrageous! Have they forgotten that rejecting a single word of
Qur'an and Hadith is an act of apostasy and punishable by death?

So, why these new writers are so desperate to
show to the world how beautiful the religion of Islam is? Their
background answers the question. You see, by living in secular and
freethinking western countries, they really wished that their
religion conformed to the principles of secularism, democracy and
freethinking. Alas! That is not an easy thing to expect from Islam.
When they see how much inhumanity, bigotry, irrationality and
tyranny is there in Islam, they simply feel ashamed of their
religion. They know very well that those images of Islam cannot
simply be refuted. They have only two choices, agree with these
practices of Islam and turn into an Islamic fundamentalist or defend
Islam by whatever means. They have very little courage to be a
fundamentalist/ Jehadis because they like the creature comfort of
this western lifestyle. At the same time, they are afraid to go
against their faith. Therefore, they start to reinvent their faith.
While they are at it, they reinvent many things in their religion.
They will quote those verses from the holy books that are benign,
tolerant, merciful, etc. These verses of the Qur'an were actually
from that period when Islam was weak and had a handful of followers.
The Muslims were then dependent upon the mercy of the non-believers.
And that is what is reflected in these rather tame verses. When
Islam became a bit stronger and the Prophet (pbuh) found that his
dogma can really be forced upon people through fear, intimidation
and slaughter, the verses of Qur'an became fiercer and frightening
with no tone of mercy and compassion, whatsoever. However, these new
writers will never tell this truth to the readers. If we quote those
violent and cruel verses of Quran and seek an explanation on them,
these Islamists simply keep quiet or just ignore the questions. But
they do not fail to give their own interpretation many other issues.
An example is the case of Hila marriage. Readers have learnt plenty
about the Hila marriage by now through various sources and from the
fundamentalists. However, these neo-Islamists have come to their own
conclusions on this matter by saying that Hila marriage is not
Islamic. What a joke! Another issue is the death penalty for
apostates. These writers are really ashamed of this provision in
Islam. Nonetheless, to save face they simply ignore this issue and
write that changing one's faith is not an act of apostasy. The
examples are communists, secularists, atheists, etc. They even let
you have the impression that a Muslim is free to choose any
religion. Of course, they are dead wrong on both these matters. Any
person who spends a little time searching the web (for example
www.golshan.com)
will find out how wrong these new inventors of Islam are. In
essence, these re-inventors of Islam are actually issuing fatwas
that suit their purposes. If this trend continues, then there will
be as many brands of Islam as there are Muslims in the world! This
is not an understatement either.

If we ask these scribes who are the true
Islamists and where can we find them, we get strange answers. Is
Golam Azam, a true Islamist? No. Saddam Hussein? Rubbish. Talibans?
Of course, not. Ayatollah? Hell, no! Maulana Azizul Haq? What the
hell you're talking about? . Maulana Fazlul Haq Amini? Are you out
of your mind? Is Saudi Arabia a true Islamic country? How absurd?
How about Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan, Sudan? No. No. No. True Islam
has not yet been invented! After the Prophet it seems that there
were no true followers of Islam and so far no true Islamic country
have been established. What these writers really want to say is that
only they (the writers) are the true followers of Islam. The rest
are not. How do the readers feel with this attitude of these new
pundits? I can tell one truth, though. The truth is that these
professors of Islamic jurisprudence and Islamic history should
consider themselves very lucky indeed for residing and writing in a
secular country. If they happen to be in any Islamic country, they
will surely have trouble with the Islamic authorities for
interpreting the religion in their own way and possibly face harsh
sentences.

Let us not be fooled by these writers. They
try to confuse those believers of Islam who had no opportunity to
learn the bitter truth about Islam and still believe in the purity
and the divinity of the religion. These writers try to blur people's
eyes from their twenty-twenty vision. They try to give a mystic and
kind image of Islam, which is non-existent, so that innocent
gullible people still cling to their age-old faith.

How absurd it is that the neo-Islamists have
recently coined a new term. It is 'secular fundamentalism.' What a
great display of intellectual apathy! To be a fundamentalist one
must be a strict follower of a Scripture be that holy or unholy. I
would like to ask these Islamists what is the Scripture that the
secularists hold as pure and holy? They have also invented a new
term called 'religious (Islamic) science'. Oh my! What a great
compliment to science! After failing to defend the so-called
scientific truths in Qur'an and Hadiths, they had no other choice
but to invent their own brand of science (read voodoo science). They
want to give the impression that the rigid methodologies used by
modern science to verify facts and to establish scientific
principles and laws are not Islamic. I would like to ask them a
simple question. Please tell us just one scientific principle that
is disclosed in Qur'an. Please do not use mumbo jumbo words and
threadbare boring tricks of difficulty with translation of Qur'an.
We are fed up with these flimsy excuses. Tell us please where in the
Qur'an we can find the laws of gravitation, laws of planetary
rotation, principle of atomic structure of matters, the periodic
table of elements, principles of relativity, geological science and
the modern science of space/rocket technology and inter-planetary
travel, and elucidation of genetic code.

Readers, have you noticed that these
Islamists often resort to personal attacks and flimsy pretexts when
they cannot refute an argument by rational thinking? Very often they
will find spelling errors, grammatical mistakes, punctuation errors
and will delve in dictionary meanings of many words used by the
secularist writers. This had really happened to some of my essays.
One Islamist wrote to me that I had very little education since I
made errors in spelling the word 'hypocrate'. These people will not
accept that typing errors are very common. As for grammar, even
Shakespeare made plenty of errors. How about Qur'an? Are there any
grammatical and/or spelling errors in the Qur'an? I am not an expert
in Arabic. So, I shall refrain from making any comment on this. But
I would like to have an answer to this question, if I may.

Let us now turn to the other group of
Islamists, that is the fundamentalist Islamists. I hardly need
elaboration on this because the whole world is familiar with them.
Humanity recognises them as the ultimate symbol of backwardness,
misogynist, intolerance, bigotry, terror and oppression. But I must
admit that these fundamentalists are absolutely honest in what they
preach and what they want to achieve. They do not deviate from the
source of all their actions, that is Qur'an and Sunnah (Hadith). In
fact, these fundamentalists have shown the truth about Islam without
any pretext or using intellectual summersault. They have exposed
Islam plain and simple without any apology. Amongst many other
things, they have demonstrated that:

A mosque is really a place for murder, execution and a depot
for hoarding arms and ammunition (Pakistan and Bangladesh)

Premarital sex between Muslim couple is punishable with
lashes, but having sex with infidel women is okay

Toilet paper is haram (don't laugh) even though our prophet
used stones for the same purpose. This is the recent fatwa from
the Talibans.

One can extend the above list to include more
absurdities. There are many more. It is quite easy to see why it
becomes simple to deal with the fundamentalists. Their thoughts and
actions are very straight forward just like the
Sirat-ul-Mustaqim. They have no pretence of decency and smooth
talk. Their actions have produced worldwide condemnation. But they
don't care. They are blind to their faith and carry out their
actions to the letter of their Holy Scriptures. They are not wolves
in sheep's skin. They are out and wolves and it is quite simple to
identify them and take necessary steps to counter them. In a way
these fundamentalists make the job of the secularists and
freethinkers simple and straightforward.

But the neo-Islamists are different breed
altogether. They really hate the fundamentalists for tarnishing the
beautiful image of Islam. They are desperate to prove to the world
that Islam is not what the fundamentalists project to the civilised
world. The neo-Islamists are absolutely bent upon proving that Islam
is in sympathy with secular thoughts. Thus, the fight to free
humanity from the clutches of Islamic slavery becomes difficult with
the presence of these Islamists. Many people may think that there
may still be a true Islam somewhere, which is not as savage as the
fundamentalists demonstrate. Clearly, these neo Islamists try to put
a coloured glass in the eyes of the ordinary Muslims to obscure
their views from the clear and true picture of Islam.

Qur'an and Hadiths are so ambiguous that it
is quite possible to prove anything and possibly every thing by
quoting from them. If you have time to search, you can really find
whatever you want from these sources. I do not want to burden the
readers by quoting endlessly from Qur'an and Hadiths about the
various issues I have raised in this essay. However, I cannot help
but to quote the following Hadith for the readers to judge the
quality of mercy and compassion practiced in Islam.

Sunan Abu-Dawud Book38, Number 4348

"Narrated Abdullah Ibn Abbas:

A blind man had a slave-mother who used to
abuse the Prophet (p.b.u.h) and disparage him. He forbade her but
she did not stop. He rebuked her but she did not give up her habit.
One night she began to slander the Prophet (p.b.u.h) and abuse him.
So he took a dagger, placed it on her belly, pressed it, and killed
her. A child who came between her legs was smeared with the blood
that was there. When the morning came, the prophet (p.b.u.h) was
informed about it.

He assembled the people and said: I adjure by
Allah the man has done this action and adjure him by my right to him
that he should stand up. Jumping over the necks of the people and
trembling the man stood up. He sat before the prophet (p.b.u.h) and
said: Apostle of Allah! I am here master; she used to abuse you and
disparage you. I forbade her but she did not stop, and I rebuked
her, but she did not abandon her habit. I have two sons like pearls
from her, and she was my companion. Last night she began to abuse
and disparage you. So I took a dagger, put it at her belly and
pressed it till I killed her.

Thereupon the prophet (p.b.u.h) said: Oh be
witness, no retaliation is payable for her blood".

A few weeks ago, I met a friend of mine who
had spent a lengthy period in Saudi Arabia. Although not a
fundamentalist Islamist, he is quite a religious person. He told me
that recently he went to Bangladesh and got his daughter married
there. Now he is trying to bring his brand new son-in-law to
Australia as a spouse of his daughter. I was very curious to know
why is it that her daughter did not follow her husband to Bangladesh
so that the new couple could raise a family in a proper Islamic
environment. His answer was quite interesting. He said, "When we are
in an Islamic society (like Bangladesh or Saudi Arabia), we do not
like Islam. We like Islam when we are in a non-Islamic society (like
Australia)". I must appreciate his honesty in telling his inner
feelings about Islam. Is not his statement a great tribute to all
the secularists and the freethinkers of the world?